Vidilian

The rain and other various other sound effects seem too loud compared to everything else. Balancing the volumes of everything would help a lot imo. As a nice, easy-listening, ambient track I can't see much wrong with the arrangement since its supposed to be pretty understated so I don't have much to say about that aspect of the song. Good job though.

@MC Ardle - lol, you didn't need to bring that up. I don't like being reminded that I'm getting older hehe. @Level 99 - forgot to out this in my last post. You asked about where else the source is used. Other than where you said, the strings from 2:37 - 3:14 in the remix play the tune that the brass in the original atarts playing at around 1:35 and the piano at 2:55 is playing the melody that the woodwind instrument is playing at 2:18 in the original. These parts are in a different time signature and not always the same notes as the orignal so that makes it harder to spot.

Yeah don't worry I understood what you said. Your idea about taking a break from the song makes sense to me since, even though I understand the issues with the sequencing, it'll take me some time and research to figure out how to sort it out properly. I know it won't it be as simple as just de-quantising/playing things in with a keyboard, and varying up the velocities even more (tried that with a piano remix awhile ago and it just ended up being sloppy in most parts). Also, I just spotted your comment MC Ardle. I don't think MMO games aren't commonly accepted because they're not on consoles. Its because they take up so much time. In fact, people who would remix MMO songs are probably spending most of their free time playing MMOs not making music hehe.

Thanks for the reply. It was helpful. Used Cubase with a plugin called Edirol orchestral to do this btw. Shame the issues can't be sorted out right now. I'll come back to it some day though.

You've got to humanise the piano and maybe give it a bit more reverb aswell. The brass and string samples you're using don't seem to be good enough. You should try changing them to better sounding ones. You've got some sort of effect on the snare (chorus I think) that I don't think it really needs. You could double the snare with another snare sound to make it fuller with having to use that effect. Also the drums overall seem repetive. Use some drumfills occasionally. The synth your using for the lead at around 0:35 could be beefed up with effects of some sort because it seems kinda weak. Experiment with stuff for it. The synth that comes in at 1:40 is pretty off to me. Tone down the delay a bit. Cymbals at the end are too loud and the ending itself is too abrupt. Maybe add another part with just the piano playing again. Hope this helps.

The only critiques I can think of are probably to do with the fact that this is a sketch but I'll say them anyway. The woodwind and then strings that plays the PotO theme could be humanised more The bass and drums during this part could be doing some more varied stuff other than just the fills. But yeah, the intro with the guitar seem pretty solid to me and the bagpipes(?)at the end work surprisingly well imo but would like to see where you go from there.

Update: EQ'd the new sounds so the mix is clearer. Adjusted the compression, volume and EQ of the bass and kick so there less dominant. Made the arrangemnet at around 2:00 less empty and differed it from the rest of the song more so its less boring when it gets to that point. Changed the limiter on the whole track to a compressor. And other things that I'm forgetting. Switching this to Mod review to get an idea of where I'm at with this.

The harpischord isn't playing at 1:40, so I'm guessing you mean the synth thats playing the melody. A good quality flute sample could work instead I guess. And if you are talking about the harpischord, I don't neccesarily think it needs to be replaced. Just humanise it more by varying the velocities of the notes its playing.

I don't like the first minute and a bit of the song. You could do some more interesting things with the arrangement of that part especially the drums which seem too simple for too long. You should have different layers to them coming in a bit sooner than they do and more variation aswell. The melody also seems like its the exact same as the orignal. Switch it up a bit from the original to make it more of a remix. Also I can't really hear the bassline your talking about so bring that out a bit more in the mix. You've got some nice sounds here though so work on making the arrangement more interesting.

Not sure if you'd get with fake sounding stuff even though that was your intention. I could be completely wrong though. But other than just the fakeness, theres a few sound choices I don't really like, eg. the synth that comes in at 1:40. Arrangement-wise I think its a tad repetetive especially with the harpischord (I think) playing the same melody for 75% of the song. But overall I like the feel your going for and the vinyl sample you've got going on.

Good first attempt at a mix imo. The piano could be playing some chords along with the melody its playing in the intro to give more depth to the song at that part and maybe have a slight variation to what its playing after the 1st 4 bars to mix it up from the original. The synth that comes in at the 1:00 mark has some annoying frequenicies to it. I suggest you change it to something else that still has that sombre feel to it. Drums should be louder except for the high hats. Sound effects seem too loud compared to the rest of the song. You should raise the volumes of the tracks so it matches up a bit better. The part at 2:20 seems to be a bit too empty for too long. You should have some other instruments come into that part at some point. Hope this helps.

Update: Replaced all the orchestral samples with better quality sounds. I'm hoping these are good enough now. Other than that, I raised some volume levels and did little changes to arrangement and mixing.

Update: I think I EQ'd things too much last time in an attempt to make things clearer, so the samples lost frequencies that probabably helped them sound more realistic. I returned most of them so I'm hoping that panning and EQ on the reverb will be enough to keep things clear.

Cheers. I'll look to replace that viola in a later update (hopefully with a live player). Update: For now, I made the viola clearer in the mix and extended and re-did the second half of the song. I'm pretty happy with the arrangement there now.

Really cool stuff here. Maybe you could have more hi-hats, cymbals, shakers, etc in the drumline and, as you say, get your idea for a bridge in there too. It'd be great to get an mp3 version uploaded to a site aswell since youtube tends to make things sound a bit worse than they actually are to me.

Its definitely interesting that you left out the melody completely. I don't think I've ever heard of that being done for a remix. Thats definitly one way of differing it from all the other mixes of this song and I really like it. A very calming, minimalist approach. For something like this it would have to be much longer though I think

Thanks a lot for the feedback. Update: Got rid of all the fast rolls you were talking about. Extended the song although I'm not sure how well the new part fits in with the rest especially since its a different time signature to the rest. Made subtles tweaks to arrangement so theres more variation. Adjusted the panning Also, I learned that the order you insert things like EQ and compression makes a difference so I sorted that out.

Update: Changed up the arrangement so there's less repetition, changed some samples and tried to sort out the EQ, volumes and reverb. I'm pretty bad at seeing issues in my own tracks so comments needed please.

One problem I have isn't to do with actually making the music. Its a mentality that I have that if I don't get any feedback (positive or negative) on a wip I get easily discouraged and tend to stop working on the wip. I got to learn to just stay persistent and believe in what I'm doing I guess.

Great stuff. You really got the dubstep feel and bassline down. I guess you could make the bass even more bassy and filthy. Thats never a bad thing for dubstep in my opinion.

Really like it. Only issue I could think of is that a couple of times the high piched bell thing (not sure what instrument it actually is) is a bit piercing.

In what way doesn't the beat work for you? Just need to know how to improve it. And how could I get you from "kind of" liking it... to really liking it

You've got some good feedback already (better than I could give), but just wanted to chime in and say I really like the feel of the intro up to 2:10 and in a way its a bit of an abrupt change if you've gotten used to that, but at the same time it wouldn't have the same impact if it wasn't abrupt, so its just personal preference I guess.

Nice, calming track here but the instrument that comes in at around 3 mins kinda annoys me for some reason but that might just be me. Don't know what the source is so can't help much with the arrangement. Sorry I couldn't be more help

The low pitch synth that plays at the beginning and end seems too muddy and overbearing which makes the melody and other things hard to hear. EQing out some of its lower frequencies should help with that. The kick drum seems a bit thin so doubling it up with a kick that has more thump could help. The arrangements too conservative aswell and the drumline could be better. Not much help I know but I gave the thread a bump atleast so hopefully someone else can help out lol